Reading Groups

How People Change: The Short Story and Moments of Transition with Sheila Kohler

6 Sessions Mondays, 6:00 pm EDT - 7:30 pm EDT September 30, 2024 to January 27, 2025

Online via Zoom

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The ‘With Books’ option includes all titles required for this group at a 10% discount from our Bookstore.

Meeting Dates:
9/30, 10/21, 11/11, 12/2, 1/6, 1/27
Held Online via Zoom

In this group, participants will examine moments of change that are essential to the forward movement of a story and so important in all of our lives. We will look at numerous crucial stages of life—childhood, adolescence, courtship and marriage, work, maturity, and death—as they are portrayed in outstanding short stories and one novella, many of these anthologized in How People Change: The Short Story as Case History. We’ll also read about encounters with others; changes of place, time, and situation; changes intrinsic to the process of maturation; changes to our inner lives; and even changes that come from our dreams.

After, we’ll consider how change is conveyed convincingly and compellingly in fiction, and investigate the necessary conflicts arising at each stage of life, to determine how much change comes from without or within. We will think about how the short story can be used to convey the essence of change over a lifetime and, perhaps, how short stories can help us to change, too.

What to read before the first meeting: Please read “Grisha” and “Oysters” by Anton Chekhov in William Tucker’s How People Change before the first meeting.

What to expect from this reading group: The reading group leader will present the stories and novella to the group and then open the discussion to all who wish to speak.

Reading List:

How People Change: The Short Story as Case History by William Tucker
The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories by Anton Chekhov
Friend of My Youth by Alice Munro
The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy

Capacity: 20

Please note that the third session of this reading group will focus on Alice Munro’s short story, “Friend of My Youth.” This conversation will include an exploration of how readers experience the author’s work after learning about the abuse her daughter, Andrea Skinner, experienced while living with Munro and her husband. For questions and concerns regarding the content of this reading group, please email Allison Escoto, Head Librarian and Director of Reading Programs, at [email protected] and we will connect you with the reading group leader.

All virtual classes are recorded. Please click here for information about our recording policy.

Led by

Sheila Kohler

Sheila Kohler

Sheila Kohler is the author of ten novels, three volumes of short fiction, a memoir, and many essays. Her most recent novel is Open Secrets (Penguin, 2020). Her memoir, Once We Were Sisters was published by Penguin in 2017, as well as Canongate in the U.K. and Alba in Spain. She has won numerous prizes, including the O.Henry twice, and has been included in The Best American Short Stories, most recently in The Best American Mystery Stories 2020. Her work has been published in thirteen countries. She has taught at Columbia, Sarah Lawrence, Bennington and at Princeton since 2007. Her novel, Cracks was made into a film with directors Jordan and Ridley Scott with Eva Green playing Miss G. You can find her blog at Psychology Today under Dreaming for Freud.

About this series

Reading Groups

Whether you’re looking to catch up on great novels or you’re interested in exploring a new writer or literary period, our reading groups offer high-level literary discussion led by experts in the field.

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